A Roundup of Upcoming Events in NW Arkansas

Welcoming Week NWA is a week-long series of family-friendly events bringing together the community to build strong connections and affirm the importance of welcoming and inclusive places in achieving collective prosperity. Welcoming Week NWA’s events include a screening and cast Q&A for the award-winning film “Land of Gold” at the Thaden School, collection drives for Canopy NWA and other local organizations, a panel discussion on solidarity in racial justice at the U of A Collaborative and a closing celebration focused on continuing engagement at CACHE Studios in Bentonville. Attendees will need to pre-register for some events, check out the full calendar below.

Listen, eat, vote! Bentonville SOUP is a micro-granting dinner celebrating and supporting creative projects in Bentonville. A suggested donation of $10 gets you a potluck dinner, drinks, and a vote. At each SOUP dinner, there are four presentations on passion projects seeking to positively impact Bentonville. Projects can be focused on a range of topics, such as art, urban agriculture, social justice, peacemaking, education, and technology. All are welcome to attend.

The annual International Festival is a celebration of diversity, inclusion, and different cultures! Taste foods from around the world and enjoy traditional dance performances and demonstrations on the Great Lawn throughout the day.  In addition, community experts will be on hand to discuss resources for immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized communities. This event is free and open to the public.

INTERFORM is proud to announce the Model Citizen: Rally & Register event in partnership with For AR People. This event will highlight information and opportunities involving voter registration and education, as well as open forum discussions centered on human rights. As an organization dedicated to community activation, INTERFORM believes this is an accessible and approachable way to bring attention to the importance of democratic engagement, while also providing opportunities for local non-profit organizations to further their causes.

Crystal Bridges’ North Forest is coming to life once again with a brand-new outdoor, nighttime experience. Listening Forest, created by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, uses light, sound, and projections to create an interactive walk through the woods. This site-specific exhibition brings together eight immersive installations, each one activated by you: your heart rate, your body, your voice, and your movements direct the forest’s response. This project brings together art and technology in a natural setting to create poetic, shared experiences and features a soundtrack composed by electronic musician Scanner (Robin Rimbaud). The forest is listening–how will you respond?

The Arkansas Natural Sky Association along with various regional astronomy and environmental groups are proud to host Arkansas’ first-ever Dark-Sky Festival! Marvel at the last of the Summer Milky Way under the nearly natural skies of the Buffalo National River, the state’s only designated International Dark-Sky Park. This family-friendly event will be bursting with activities, including a constellation tour, telescopic star party, Orionid meteor shower, celestial art class, nocturnal wildlife, light pollution awareness, nightscape photography contest, giant bubble blowing and solar marshmallows.

A Slow Roll glow ride will be part of the First Thursday festivities on October 6 in downtown Fayetteville. Free glow sticks and lights will be provided by Experience Fayetteville to decorate before the group rolls out.

What’s a Slow Roll you ask? It’s a group bike ride where the point is not to race but to relax and enjoy good company and good vibes. This is a kid-friendly ride but Strider bikes and training wheels are not advised. Don’t have a bike? Hope on an e-scooter and join in the fun.

The First Thursday event also includes live music, street performances, children’s activities, food trucks, a craft beer garden and more.

Join Downtown Springdale for a free party at Shiloh Square in downtown Springdale! The Fall Bonfire is a family-friendly event that is part of the 6th Annual Ozarktober event series. You can expect fire pits for s’mores, live music, & festive activities for kids. The fun starts at 6pm and goes until 9pm. Ozarktober is a celebration of fall in the Ozarks that takes place throughout October in downtown Springdale.

Enjoy the amazing winter wonderland of lights on Fayetteville’s Historic Downtown Square! Each year The City of Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Department spends over 2000 hours decorating the downtown square with over 500,000 LED lights that can be enjoyed nightly through New Year’s Day. The Lighting Night Parade will take place on the Friday prior to Thanksgiving, immediately following the Lighting Ceremony. The event is free and open to the public and will culminate in the square being fully lit for the first time for the 2022-23 season.

The inaugural edition of the FORMAT festival will bring a world-class mix of art, music and technology to the heart of the Ozarks in September. The event will take place from Sept. 23-25 on the private Sugar Creek Airstrip in Bentonville and feature performances from more than 50 acts including Rüfüs Du Sol, Phoenix, Khruangbin, Beach House, The War On Drugs, Nile Rodgers & CHIC, The Flaming Lips, Jungle, and Herbie Hancock.

The festival is also bringing work by some big-name artists to the area. Over three days and nights, attendees can explore immersive art installations, site-specific commissions, and architectural interventions by the likes of Doug Aitken, Nick Cave, Jacolby Satterwhite, Pia Camil, and Marinella Senatore.

The Walmart AMP still has a number of big-name concerts coming up including Goo Goo Dolls on September 18, Koe Wetzel with Aaron Lewis and Kolby Cooper on September 30, The Chicks with Patty Griffin on October 4 and The Black Keys on October 13. Next year, Matchbox Twenty will perform on June 23. Schedules and tickets are available at the AMP’s website.

Butterfield Stage,where Railyard Live concerts are held, will host several live music performances in downtown Rogers during the month of September as the 2022 concert series draws to an end. Baang and Jasper Logan will kick off the month on September 2. The following weekends will feature a series of tribute bands playing classics by Tom Petty, Bob Seger and Widespread Panic. Finally, Trout Fishing in America and La Sonora Dynamita de Carlitos Xivir will perform toward the end of the month.

The outdoor pavilion has seating for up to 1,500. The backstage building that formerly housed the farmers market is now a green room for artists and a place for guests to buy food, beer, and wine from Lo Intervention by Onyx.

JJ’s Live is a 2,500-person capacity live music and event space located in the heart of Fayetteville. Since enclosing their stage at the end of 2019, they have held concerts featuring Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Casey Donahew, Aaron Watson, Reza the Illusionist, Steve Wariner, and Josh Abbott Band. The line-up for the rest of the year includes everyone from Old Crow Medicine Show to Goose to Waka Flocka Flame to Trombone Shorty and Trampled by Turtles. Find details on dates and the rest of the scheduled performances below.

The Downtown Springdale Alliance will host its final two LIVE! at Turnbow concerts on the last Thursday of the month in September and October. The free outdoor concert occurs at Turnbow Park and inside the Outdoor Dining District allowing attendees to enjoy food and drink from businesses included on the district map. The music begins at 6:30PM.

On September 29, the opening act is Baang and the headliner is Big Piph & Tomorrow Maybe. On October 27, City Sessions will present Proyecto Tumbado and John Mailander’s Forecast ft. Lindsay Lou.

George’s Majestic Lounge, located on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, is the oldest and longest-running club and live music venue in Arkansas. The history of George’s continues to be written every day with every act that sets up on their stages. From now through the end of the year, there is an opportunity to choose from over 60+ different performances, spanning a multitude of musical genres and tastes.

Think music of the moment, infused with new ideas, and range anywhere from indie rock, hip hop, salsa, jazz, alt-country, experimental electronica, and progressive folk to exciting new forms that defy easy categorization. The best part? The Momentary has several ways (and indoor and outdoor spaces) to enjoy live music.

You could dive into the technicolor sound of two-time Grammy-nominated indie pop artists Japanese Breakfast on September 17, purchase a four-day festival pass to Momentous and experience what’s happening today across the global electronic music scene on October 20-23 or enjoy a night of groundbreaking jazz performed by the acclaimed Tigran Hamasyan Trio on November 11.

The Walton Arts Center still has Pretty Woman: The Musical, Chicago, Tootsie, Moulin Rouge! The Musical and Hadestown left in the Procter & Gamble Broadway Series. In addition, the Coca-Cola Night Out Series, Land O’Lakes Concert Series, Family Fun Series, Kellogg’s Kids Series and LOL@WAC will feature all sorts of amazing entertainment including Legally Blonde The Musical, The Music of Sam Cooke, The Nutcracker, Annie, Winnie the Pooh, David Sedaris and so much more. Find details about each series below.

Don’t miss TheatreSquared seven-play season full of laughter, music, and exciting world premieres that will kick off with “It Came From Outer Space!” on August 24.

• “It Came From Outer Space!” – a brand-new musical comedy adapted from the cult favorite ’50s sci-fi film
• “Detroit ’67” – a play by MacArthur Genius Fellow Dominique Morisseau and winner of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama
• “Stones in His Pockets” – winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy
• “A Christmas Carol” – a Northwest Arkansas holiday tradition
• “Poor Yella Rednecks” – a play by Arkansas-born author and Oscar nominee Qui Nguyen
• “Sanctuary City” – selected by the New York Times as Best Theatre of 2021, Critics Pick
• “Chicken & Biscuits” – fresh from its 2021 Broadway debut
• “Violet” – a New York Times Critics’ Pick